A way to get rid of the unelected power mongers

In every government you hear the same complaint. The place is being run by a secretive group of unelected operatives in the prime minister’s office.

Some of the top members of the inner sanctum, like the prime minister’s chief of staff, are more powerful than cabinet ministers. They are not accountable to the people. They order the governing party’s elected MPs around. They seem to have little respect for the democratic process.

In the government of Pierre Trudeau, rank-and-file party members at one point rebelled against this degree of control. Under Jean Chretien and Paul Martin, MPs chafed at being pushed around. In the Harper government, backbenchers have spoken out at being denied freedom of speech. But the problem went further than that. An RCMP report revealed the prime minister’s operatives ran a cover-up operation to try and hide embarrassing revelations relating to the Senate expenses scandal.

Most everyone agrees that something needs to be done about the ever-expanding power of the PMO heavyweights. And there is in fact a rather easy way to mitigate the problem. Have the top positions in the PMO filled by elected members of parliament. Have the prime minister appoint them, as he does cabinet ministers and parliamentary secretaries, from his caucus.

This would serve as way of increasing accountability and visibility of the PMO operation. It would give regular MPs more input and more power. It would mean caucus members no longer have to answer to the unelected – the short pants brigade as they are now called – who surround the PM.

A senior adviser to Justin Trudeau said the other day that the idea is worthy of consideration. The Liberal leader has some good ideas on democratic reform and staged a major break with tradition by cutting loose the party affiliation of senators. But he needs to do more if he is to convince the public he is really out to change the system.

For another reform to increase PMO accountability we should look to Washington. There the White House holds a daily press briefing. Here, the prime minister’s office, which is housed in the Langevin Block, is closed off to media. The journalists flock to Parliament Hill where, by and large, the power isn’t.

With the infrastructure set up this way, the unelected big-power operatives in the PMO have been allowed to act with the secrecy they prefer. It’s got to change.

The status quo is represented by those in power, regardless of how the public feels. Politics is broken in this country. JT cannot fix it because he still can’t do what’s in the public interest, after all the Liberals set the groundwork for what Harper is doing today, I don’t see the Liberals changing. JT is even against proportional representation because it won’t benefit the Liberals. I realize MP’s have no influence in the current rot and dysfunction of policy. The status quo is too powerful to allow them that ‘freedom’ to do best for the collective. We are in for more abuse of those who exploit so-called democracy for their short-term gain. There is something fundamentally wrong with our politics and government and I’m shocked at the myopia of Canadians. Your idea is a good one, sadly hyper-partisanship among the parties won’t allow it.

Flowers, Just want to say that there maybe a window of opportunity with LPC regarding PR.
At their convention in Feb. they passed a resolution which directed the party to investigate all forms of electoral reform including PR and make recommendations to Parliament on which is best suited to Canada. It is a crack in their AV amour and something electoral reform activists will be certain to work on. That wouldn’t have happened if JT was absolutely against PR, he must be willing to listen.

Perhaps. Except he said he ‘believes deeply’…..”I do not support proportional representation because I believe deeply that every Member of Parliament should represent actual Canadians and Canadian communities, not just political parties. I support a preferential ballot because I believe it will lead to a more substantive and civil debate during elections and a more representative government afterward.”
He wants to implement AV because he believes that the Liberals will be everyone’s second choice. In short, he supports it for partisan reasons, not because it will help Democracy. That is a phony reform that rarely changes the winner and causes more spoiled ballots and spells the end to real reform efforts. The forever and a day backroom Liberal boys have him and they can keep him as far as I’m concerned. Either you deeply believe in real democratic reform for a great country or your just another power monger.

Flowers, do you have a date on that quote? It may not be recent. I understand the arguments for the LPC supporting AV. They might get a nasty surprise when AV returns an unexpected wonky result based on the AV experiment in Alberta & BC. But there are reform minded MP’s in the Liberal caucus, Dion, Murray, Valeriote and others & they are working hard to educate the rest of caucus. The practical reality is if we are to ever see PR in this country we need the Liberals on board. It is behooves us to put pressure on the LPC caucus members to give PR some open minded consideration.

From his leadership campaign literature and nothing has changed regardless of Dion/Murray et al. Liberals only claim to consider it, as it is not in their interests to jeopardize their electability by making the system more fair. At the April 6 forum in Guelph Michael Chong was asked about his views on proportional representation, Chong suggested waiting five years or so, assuming his bill passes, and seeing how people feel about things then. Obviously with the Cons and Liberals PR will never be given a fair chance. If the Liberals can even smell power, they’ll forget all about any fairness in the system.

Yes, Turdeau’s comment is older now that the PR contingent in caucus has made a difference in the thinking of many MP’s. There is an openness to considering PR which is critical if we are to see any change. PET was interested in PR in the early ’70’s but was stopped by his caucus so changes in the thinking of caucus are critical which is why I mentioned earlier that we need to press the Liberal caucus.

I have also heard Mr. Chong speak about his reform bill. It is a very small step in the right direction but to hear him you would think it was a silver bullet for our electoral woes. He stated that PR and his bill have the same objectives which is to curtail & control the power of the PMO which is a total misrepresentation of PR. Mr. Chong has voted for all the omnibus budget legislation his government has passed. I do not consider Mr. Chong a friend of democracy in this country given his voting record and misrepresentation of his bill & PR.